Grissom (In the Company of Snipers #26)

Chapter Twenty-Six

The blood on the trail grew lighter the farther Grissom tracked into the trees. Instead of taking a direct route, which would’ve been smart, whoever had abducted Tuesday had veered west before turning eastward, into the trees. He wanted to scream her name, desperate for Tuesday to answer. But he couldn’t risk alerting her attacker. Not willing to wait until the trail ran out, he jerked his cell phone out of his pocket, and called Alex, like he’d wanted to do at the start of this shitshow.

“B-boss. Sorry, I know it’s Christmas, and you’re with your family, but—”

“What do you need?” Alex barked like the Rottweiler he could be.

“Someone’s kidnapped Tuesday. She’s bleeding, Boss. There’s blood on my driveway and more heading into the trees behind my place and—”

“On my way. Call Mother. Tell her to pull footage from every security camera within twenty miles.” The phone went dead.

Grissom shook it to reactivate the screen, in case he’d accidentally disconnected Alex. But no. His screen flashed call ended . Knowing Alex, he’d be on site within minutes. Heading deeper into his trees, Grissom wondered who else Alex might call. Not a good day for anyone to be asked to leave their families, but damned if Grissom cared.

He was deep within his twenty-acre tree farm when Alex caught up with him. The guy was dressed in a USMC t-shirt and jeans. No jacket. He must’ve driven right over, then tracked Grissom. Tossing a set of earbuds as he passed by, Alex ordered, “Tell me what you know.”

Grissom caught the earbuds and inserted them deep in his ear canal, where they’d keep him in contact with everyone on the same frequency. “She didn’t come back after she took the garbage out. I found blood near the trash receptacle, then the tracks I’m following now. Whoever grabbed her—”

“Dragged her, understood. Which means she’s not fighting back, and she’s hurt. Who’s with your boys?”

“No one. They know better than to open any outside doors while I’m gone.”

“This might take a while. You sure about that?”

Damned good question. The bloody smears on the snow faded the further into the trees Grissom went, but the drag marks hadn’t. “I had no choice. Have to find Tuesday.”

He was shoulder to shoulder with Alex as they dodged dozens of six-foot, then eight-foot saplings. Then nine-footers. They were nearly to the other side of his land, when the trail ran out and—

“Shit,” he hissed, his mouth dry. There was no sign of Tuesday. Just a mixed-up mess of boot tracks, and a long, nylon rope dangling from the eighty-foot tall shagbark hickory that straddled the property line he shared with his neighbor to the north.

Grissom knelt and studied the assailant’s prints. “We’re looking for a guy. One set of tracks. Size thirteen boots. Light tactical, military, all-terrain. Rounded toe. Anti-skid soles.”

Just like mine. Panic flared. Had someone been inside his house and taken his old boots to frame him? He looked closer, making sure these tracks didn’t carry the same tell-tale slice across the left heel, evidence of a different day and another shitstorm a world away. Thank God. These tread marks were sharp and clear. The soles had to be brand-new. What the fuck? Army boots took a beating on a daily basis. Forced marches. Rough as shit terrain. Landing hard after being dropped out of helicopters on far-off mountainsides. Running. Fighting. Kicking in doors. Racing to save a brother’s life. Yet the impressions this bastard’s boots left were clear and crisp. Not worn. Not worn at all. Definitely not mine.

The prints in the damp soil weren’t deep, either, considering the size of most men wearing size thirteens. Big boots meant big feet, and usually, big feet meant a big, heavy guy. But these prints were flat. Interesting.

“Stewart,” Alex snapped, thumbing the speaker on his cell phone and waving for Grissom to get to his side.

“Boss,” Mother spoke up, “I’m watching a black, late model sedan on the frontage road east of Grissom’s housing development. It’s parked and idling. One person inside, as near as I can tell from the security camera on the front porch across the road. I sent Maverick to check it out. Rory and Ember will be at Grissom’s house within minutes. They were already en route when I called. They’ll take Tanner and Luke to their place until Grissom’s back.”

“Thanks,” Grissom told her. Ember and Rory were both kids at heart. They’d take care of Tanner and Luke, and they’d make this interrupted Christmas fun. Their son Tyler would help.

“I can’t access any satellite footage, not with this stormfront rolling in,” she added. “If I could, I’d rewind every last feed and go back as far as I could, for as long as it takes. But that option’s out. Can’t see through weather like this.”

“Know that, Mother,” Alex said. “Any other footage you can access? Traffic cams? Doorbell cameras? God knows everybody and their son-of-a-bitching dog’s got one.”

“No doorbell cameras that give clear images. Axel’s backtracking traffic cams on all streets and off-ramps feeding that frontage road. Hopefully, we can catch the plate, at least establish which direction the sedan came from. Then it’s just a matter of pinging consecutive traffic cams to catch them, maybe identify them. These people are not omniscient, Grissom. They’ve made mistakes. It’s just a matter of finding those mistakes and intercepting them.”

“Tuesday doesn’t have that kind of time,” Grissom growled.

“Are you sure there’s more than one person involved?” Alex asked.

“No, Boss,” Mother declared, “just assumed there had to be at least two. One to grab Tuesday and a getaway driver.”

Grissom groaned. Not having specific intel wasn’t good enough.

“All hands on deck, Mother,” Alex ordered. “Tell them who’s missing and what little we know.”

“Already did. Called in Search and Rescue, too. Figured they owed us one for pulling two of their people from that ravine the last time we worked a rescue with them. Called our local sheriff. Howie’s on his way; so’s Nighthawk and Tucker Chase’s people.”

Grissom ran a quick hand through his hair, exasperated and unwilling to wait, like he had a choice. He hated the Swiss cheese his brain had become since the wreck with that FedEx truck. He had no idea who Nighthawk or Howie was, and only vaguely remembered some ballsy guy named Tucker Chase. But all hands on deck wasn’t good enough. He wanted the National Guard.

Fighting back the panic crawling up his spine, his gaze dropped to the smooth trail over the thin layer of snow that quietly declared precisely where Tuesday’d been dragged and where she’d been left. Why wasn’t she still there? What had this asshat done with her? To her? Deeper prints showed where the bastard’s feet had dug into the snow to maintain traction, while pulling her through the trees. Other places clearly showed where his heels had dug in. He’d walked backwards part of the time. Why?

Tuesday wasn’t heavy enough that a guy with size thirteen feet would’ve had to struggle dragging her. Could it be the kidnapper wasn’t strong enough? Bullshit! There wasn’t a man or woman on The TEAM who couldn’t carry a tiny thing like Tuesday. If he were that fool, Grissom would’ve thrown her over one shoulder, hot-footed it into the trees, and run like a son of a bitch to that waiting sedan. What was the person in that parked vehicle waiting for, if not to secret Tuesday away as quickly as possible? Wasn’t that how kidnappings worked?

Or… was she already inside the car? Murdered? Bleeding out? Stabbed? Strangled? Maybe worse? Was the person Mother thought she was watching actually Tuesday’s dead body?

No! He shook his mother’s ingrained negativity away. Tuesday. Was. Not. Dead. She couldn’t be. He’d know if she were. He would feel it.

Then, where was she? Boot prints aplenty danced around the tree. They were dug in deeper in some places, overlapped and crisscrossed their own paths everywhere. But there was only the one drag mark in, nothing leading toward the sedan. There were no tread marks on any part of the smoothed trail that had brought her here, except for two rounded impressions, one on each side of that trail, about two feet from the base of the tree.

While Alex gave Mother stern marching orders, Grissom dropped to his knees and looked closer at the evidence in the thin layer of snow. Whoever took Tuesday had preplanned. He’d come prepared, and he’d dealt with her as soon as he’d gotten her out of sight. But he hadn’t killed her. There were no signs of struggle, and Tuesday would’ve put up one helluva a fight. If she’d still been alive…

Pissed at the possibility that she wasn’t and denying it every time the notion hit his brainpan, Grissom looked up at the tree, to the rope lying over the lowest branch, then back to the round holes at each side of Tuesday’s last location. Elbows, damn it. Those depressions were where she’d stuck her elbows into the ground. But...

No prints. No signs anywhere that told him she’d gotten to her feet or stood beneath the tree. But there… Right there. On the other side of the tree’s wide trunk. Overlaying several thick tread marks left by her attacker’s boots, were a deep set of smooth-soled size-seven prints left by—what could only be Tuesday’s baby-blue moccasins. The ones she was wearing this morning.

Thank you, Jesus! Grissom licked his dry lips, his mind spinning but no longer from panic. The smooth trail ended at the base of the hemlock, but the slipper prints began with two very distinct depressions, both side-by-side, as if she’d—

He looked up again. How had she climbed this tree without leaving prints at the base of it? What’d she do, fly? Or… had her abductor strung her feet first and upside down, her butt against the tree trunk. That was why the rope. Damn the bastard!

Her prints began where she’d jumped to the ground, a distance of at least twenty feet.

“I’ll kill him,” Grissom hissed. His woman was strong, damn strong. But she would’ve had to pull herself up, in a tuck, then somehow grabbed the rope that had probably been tied around her ankles. She’d hoisted her full body weight up and past that damned branch. It made sense. Then she sat up there and untied the rope.

The image of Tuesday sweating and cussing on that branch made Grissom proud as fuck. His woman was unstoppable when she was angry. An over-protective mother bear who’d had no problem ending Maeve Astor, the diabolical black widow spider from hell, who’d killed how many men? How many children?

Which explained why her footprints weren’t near the base of the tree. Because his beautiful, crazy woman had jumped. She was injured, in no shape to fight, much less accomplish all she had, but she was headed back to his home and she was fighting mad.

Okay then. “Boss! Get your ass over here. Found Tuesday’s tracks. She’s on her way home. To my place.”

Pushing to his feet, Grissom followed the woman he adored. Tiny crimson beads in the snow told him she was still bleeding but running, following those gawddamned Army issue boots leading back to his house. To his sons. Damn. He had to get there first.

Alex ran alongside, both of them charged with enough angst to blast a rocket to the sun.

“This was never about Tuesday, Boss. Someone’s after my boys,” Grissom explained, his lungs on fire, pissed that he’d left them alone. Two little guys who trusted him, only him, to keep them safe. Who’d been told to never open any doors. Which might keep them safe. They had no idea how to shut off the alarm. Not like that meant much to Luke. He was too young to understand. Too bull-headed and too stubborn. Too much like his old man. And now, the jackhole who’d hurt Tuesday wouldn’t hesitate to break windows or doors. Or heads.

I left them alone. What was I thinking?

Of Tuesday. That was who.

Run, damn you! Run!

Too late. A raucous shriek blasted over the trees. His alarm. His only line of defense had just been breached. Someone was in his house, after his boys. Tuesday had just been a distraction, and Grissom fell for it.

Must! Run! Faster!